Functional neuroanatomy is possibly more relevant to psychiatricdisorders than is classical neuroanatomy are slowly eclipsing some ofthe previous tenets of classical neuroanatomy.

The neurosciences are fundamentally important to the clinical specialties of psychiatry,  neurology, and neurosurgery because they explore the biology of neuronal tissues.  Two sub-specialty areas within psychiatry--neuropsychiatry and biological psychiatry--have particularly endeavored to integrate neuroscientific information with clinical psychiatry.  It is unfortunate in some respects that these subspecialty concepts have evolved, since an appreciation for the basic neurosciences should infuse the clinical approaches of all professionals working with the mentally ill.

MISLEADING DICHOTOMIES  There is a common tendency to divide and distinguish phenomena, even in the absence of adequate data.  This tendency has had unfortunate consequences for the mentally ill.  In recent history, people inflicted with diseases that were not understood (e.g., tuberculosis, cancer) have been ostracized from society.  Once the conditions were understood as medical diseases, these outcasts entered the relative comfort of a medical model for their afflictions.  Patients with  mental illnesses are currently caught in a transitional phase in this process.  The general  acceptance of mental illness as a disease of the brain is currently hindered by at least five misleading dichotomies.